


Your heart was glass, I dropped it

by sometimez



Category: Superstore (TV)
Genre: Break Up, F/M, This is how 6x02 happened in my head, still don't know how to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:47:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28023408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sometimez/pseuds/sometimez
Summary: For a second Amy almost feels at ease in Jonah’s arms, but before she can fully enjoy it the moment is over.Gone.
Relationships: Amy Dubanowski & Jonah Simms, Amy Dubanowski/Jonah Simms
Comments: 7
Kudos: 19





	Your heart was glass, I dropped it

**Author's Note:**

> I miss them.

For a second Amy almost feels at ease in Jonah’s arms, but before she can fully enjoy it the moment is over.

Gone.

“ _We’re_ moving to California” Jonah emphasizes. He says it so easily, with that stupid grin she would find endearing at almost any other time. Now she can’t even take an extra second to appreciate it because the phrase keeps echoing in her head. _We’re_. The way he says it too, like he’s so sure, no need to give it a second thought. Like he doesn’t lie awake at night petrified by the idea of being uprooted and forced across the country for a girl he met while compulsively taking a job at a glorified grocery store.

It’s been the first moment of the day where she’s just been able to stop and think. No zoom meeting to run around finding reliable service for or disgruntled customers to try and appease, just her and her thoughts. And Jonah’s stupid comforting hug she’s not ready to let end.

She takes a second to thank Dina in her head for managing all the questions everyone’s been having about the new covid measures. Amy was once again grateful to have her by her side. She doesn’t know what she would do without her and is terrified by the thought she’ll have to find out soon. None of this is making her feel any better and she almost starts to feel sick.

It’s as if Jonah almost senses her mind on the brink of going into overdrive so he squeezes her a little tighter. And Amy is almost annoyed at how comforting he can be because she’s still so unsure how he’s able to do that. How does he manage to make her feel almost instantly better without her having to say anything? God, he sucks. As he begins to rock them back and forth, she finally gives in and just slumps forward. Yeah, he _really_ sucks. But she just lets him continue to hold her.

“Yeah, we’re” she lets out in a whisper.

He lets her go and takes a second to look at her. He feels like it’s been so long since they’ve had a moment to just be with each other. Between packing up the whole house and Amy having to deal with all the new corporate stuff he feels like he hasn’t seen much of her. Amy can already sense the annoyingly earnest “how are you doing?” about to leave Jonah’s lips. She’s nervous to clue him in on her fucked up thoughts so she just smiles at him. It feels a little strained, but she makes sure to show off as many teeth as she can and thinks she’s mostly pulled it off.

Okay, he knows there's definitely something wrong now. Why did she smile like that? Neither of them says anything for a moment, and before Jonah is finally able to get some iteration of what’s wrong out Dina is bursting through the door.

“Amy, Marcus is telling everyone injecting bleach can stop the virus again and a crowd of customers has started lining up near the pharmacy asking for an injection” she steps in with her hand blocking her eyes from their view.

“God, I told him to stop saying that. Did you get to him before he started talking over the intercom this time?” Amy asks, already sounding exhausted.

“With all the social distancing precautions I wasn’t able to take him down before he reached for the mic. I’m just now realizing how much I’ve relied on that maneuver to get stuff done around here” Dina trails off as if reflecting on every time she’s successfully managed to solve a problem by tackling someone.

“You don’t have to cover your eyes, Dina, you’re already wearing a mask and I don’t think your hand would do much in stopping droplets anyway” Jonah points out.

“Oh. Well just giving you both a moment to keep your private parts, well, private” she says no longer shielding her eyes from them.

“We weren’t doing anything with our private parts, Dina” Jonah responds and can’t contain his eye roll.

“Yeah, okay” she answers completely unconvinced. “I was being kind for your sake more than mine, nothing I haven’t seen before” she adds unfazed.

Jonah chooses then to be the bigger person and not push, but it’s definitely not because he doesn’t have a good comeback.

Amy grabs her mask and makes her way towards the door ready to follow Dina.

“Can you tell Garrett to make an announcement? It can be anything. Maybe it’s better to cut Marcus off at the source and I’ll head towards pharmacy” Amy asks.

“On it!” Dina nods and leaves the room.

Amy lets out a breath and as she turns to Jonah she can see the worry linger in his eyes. “Hey,” she says softly and reaches for the side of his cheek. “Thank you” she whispers gently.

He still feels like there’s something wrong, but he can’t help but break out into a small smile. “Anytime,” he says easily as she lets her hand fall. She turns away as if bracing herself before putting on her mask and heading out the door. Jonah waits until he can’t hear her footsteps down the hall anymore and walks out toward customer service to see what random announcement Garrett came up with.

-

Amy finally admits what’s wrong when she’s in the middle of sifting through a folder of contracts and company pamphlets at her desk. Jonah makes a dumb joke about Amy’s mistake involving leaving with a job while he’s all set when Amy feels like she suddenly can’t breathe. She looks at him sitting at the other side of the desk reading out the life insurance policies for spouses and stops listening after he says something about murdering her.

Maybe it’s the finality of what submitting these documents will mean or the fact Jonah had said he always thought he’d end up back in Chicago when she brought up the likelihood of him ending up in California eventually but she can’t hold it in any longer. Jonah realizes she’s stopped responding to him and gives her one more second before asking what’s wrong.

That’s when she breaks.

“IdontknowifyoushouldcometoCalifornia,” someone says.

It then takes him a moment to register that Amy is the one who just said something.

Amy made sure to barrel through the sentence quickly because now there was no way of taking it back, no matter how much she wanted to. She and Jonah don’t have the greatest track record for sharing their feelings no matter how stupid that seems in retrospect, but she hasn’t been able to shake this feeling.

“You what?” he manages.

“I’m scared,” she starts and pauses before taking a shuddering breath, “of you coming to California for me,” she says while maintaining eye contact with the sheets of paper on her desk. Her hands are fiddling with a stray paperclip and she can’t look up at him.

He still doesn’t seem to understand. “What do you mean scared, you don’t have to worry about anything” he assures her. “I've got all the flight stuff ready and my two-week notice is in. Shoot, you do have to remind me to send out Emma’s transfer stuff to the high school before we get there though or she won’t be able to start as soon as we thought.”

She wants to disappear just then. Or yell maybe. Unsure if at him for not registering what she’s trying to say or at herself for failing to say it right. “Jonah,” she manages to get out and she can’t help it when her voice breaks just slightly at the end.

He snaps his head up at that and furrows his eyebrows upon seeing her holding back tears. It’s as if it suddenly dawns on him that this isn’t just another conversation about how nervous she is about the new job. She’s specifically talking about him. Him going with her across the country to said job. “You’re scared... of me coming with you?” he says, still sounding unsure.

She takes a breath and looks up at him. “I. I want you to come with me, it’s just” she’s struggling to get it out. “I’m scared of you uprooting your entire life to come to California for me. You’re leaving everything. Everything, Jonah. Everyone you know is here or in this time zone at least, and you’re just ready to follow me and the kids. It’s, it’s asking a lot. Everything just feels like a lot right now.”

“What do you- I,” he snaps his mouth shut in disbelief. “I don’t understand where this is coming from Amy, we’ve been talking about this for weeks. Of course, I’m willing to follow you, all of you, anywhere.”

She can’t look at him again. What does she say to that? She knows she wants to just agree more than anything. In a perfect world she’d release the sob she’s holding back, apologize for being stupid, and kiss the worried look off his face. But if this year has taught her anything it’s to always brace for the worst.

She looks over at the filing cabinets and the plant he brought her that first day in her new office catches her eye. The plant didn’t last long but she kept the plastic planter it came in and it’s currently sitting there empty. She thinks about how there must be something poetic in that.

“Exactly” she responds as if that’s supposed to clear everything up.

“I don’t get it, Amy.” He says it like he’s pleading with her to help him understand.

“I know you took my ring.” She doesn’t know if she said that loud enough for him to register but she takes his silence as a sign he heard her.

“So, this is about the ring.” He says slowly as if he’ll startle her.

She doesn’t respond right away so he takes that as confirmation.

“When I realized you’d probably taken it I was so scared you’d do something like plan this elaborate...thing. Like a big Jonah gesture thing and we wouldn’t get a chance to talk about anything, so I have to say this now.”

“A Jonah thing?” is all he can respond, and she can tell he’s genuinely hurt by the tone in his voice.

“No, that’s not what I-”

“I’m sorry the thought of me proposing to you with an elaborate me thing is so terrifying for you. I didn’t know I was the only one that took the past couple of weeks planning our life together in California seriously.” He reaches into his pocket and lays the ring on her desk.

“No, Jonah that’s not what I meant. It’s just-”

“My break is over actually; I should probably just head back out.” He gets up and doesn’t take a second to look back at her as he makes his way out the door.

“Jonah” Amy tries to call out to, but he’s already gone.

-

He’s pretending to reprice items in the back room when she finally manages to get a moment alone with him again.

“Hey,” she tries. And his tight nod in response lets her know he heard her.

She raises her peace offering a little higher so it catches his eye. She knows he’s noticed them when he pauses in between scans for a second too long.

He takes another moment and lets out a sigh. “What are those for?” he finally asks.

“It’s not as elaborate as something you would come up with and I only had a couple of minutes in between calls but it’s...an Amy gesture?” she tries.

He can’t help himself and turns fully towards her taking the flowers from her hand. He manages to keep his voice level, “an Amy gesture?”

She nods slowly, expecting him to throw them back at her face or storm out.

He doesn’t.

“Did you personally take the time to run them over with a grocery cart or did you just find them this way?” he finally asks.

She lets out a small sigh of relief that he’s speaking to her. “It’s all we had left in garden. I kind of had to pick some off the floor” saying that out loud now doesn’t make it seem as nice a gesture as she had intended.

Jonah scoffs at that. “Thanks, actually it’s a great representation of how I’m feeling today, but I got to get back to” he gestures vaguely at the shampoo bottles he was working hard at pretending to reprice. He still hasn’t been able to figure out if the shampoo is meant for dogs or people. The cartoon image of a woman and a dog smiling seems misleading with both the woman’s hair and the dog’s fur lathered up. The only word he can make out on the label is shiny and the five warning labels on the back don’t make him feel any better about the product.

“They’re...” she sighs suddenly, feeling stupid “supposed to be like, remember the trash flowers?”

“You want me to throw them away for you?” he asks suddenly confused.

“You probably should, but not now. No. I mean do you remember your first day here?”

She looks over expectantly at Jonah because he remembers everything, but he doesn’t seem to be following at all.

He looks over expectantly at Amy now and she feels even more nervous suddenly.

But of course he remembers. He remembers everything about the day he first met her.

“Well, you had messed up for like the millionth time that day,” she starts.

Jonah has to bite back the retort that it was his first day and he didn’t get any actual training before being out on the floor.

“I felt bad for yelling at you because you had this stupid open and vulnerable look on your face all day and no matter what I said or did you just...kept looking at me that way. Like all day” she says. “And I grabbed the flowers I had just made you clean up and I gave them to you as a peace offering.” She looks over at him and Jonah just keeps looking at her.

“Okay, and well, that was the first thing I ever gave you” she finishes lamely.

He still doesn’t say anything.

“I gave you a bunch of flowers you picked up off the floor and later that day you” she has to stop to catch her breath and will herself not to tear up again. God, when did she start doing that so easily, she doesn’t like it at all. She rolls her eyes at herself before continuing, “you covered the entire ceiling in glow stars for me because I gave you that stupid speech about feeling stuck so the thought of that same feeling makes me just...” she doesn’t think she has the words to describe how scared she is by the mere thought of it.

Jonah finally stops pretending like he’s not hanging off her every word.

“Amy,” he starts.

“Sorry, it’s just-” she can’t seem to finish the thought.

“No. Of course, I remember that day, I think I kept one of the flowers in my locker for like a week.”

Amy lets out a watery laugh at that. “When I gave you a ride the first time, I think it was a week or two after that, I was so terrified you’d open the glove compartment of my car for some reason and find stars I kept from that day. I was so tense the whole ride” she confesses.

Jonah let’s out a laugh. A real laugh, like he can’t help himself. “And here I thought you just didn’t like me.”

“Yeah, well maybe that was part of it too.”

They both kind of smile at each other for a moment before Jonah makes himself muster up the courage to continue the conversation. 

“That day you told me that all your days felt the same and you felt trapped. And I don’t ever want to be the reason you feel trapped again Amy. If that’s what you've been trying to say, if I ever made you feel that I’m the one that’s sorry” he’s interrupted by her before he can get anything else out.

“No,” she says so simply. “God, no Jonah, how can you even think that? I don’t think I‘ve ever felt that way again since that moment because of you.”

And he has no idea how to respond to that.

“I’m just so terrified by the idea of ever making you feel that way, even for a second. That wasn’t the only gesture you made for me, maybe one of the most elaborate, but every day you’ve never really stopped. For the first time, in a really really long time Jonah, I felt like someone was putting my feelings first. But the fact that it was you, means everything to me.”

He’s suddenly so relieved and touched. She’s worried about him, not because of him. “You’d never make me feel that way, are you kidding? You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me” he moves towards her and reaches out to touch her, but she takes a step back.

He’s not quick enough to hide the flash of hurt across his face this time, and the feeling of relief is suddenly fleeting.

“But that's what I thought too Jonah. I found out I was pregnant, and I ran to Adam and I believed him when he said we’d figure it out. And we did, it was even good at first, all I needed was him and for Emma to be okay and everything was good. But you know how that turned out.” 

“You were a kid, Amy. It's a completely different set of circumstances.”

“But it’s not. It’s really not Jonah. You’re willing to follow me for this job that neither of us knows anything about. All we know is that the money is good but it’s so time-consuming I feel like I haven’t seen you in days, and we’ve been working in the same building.” She can’t stop talking suddenly, all the thoughts she’s held back these few weeks coming out. “And what happens when we get there? We haven’t even discussed what you want to do, are you really okay with just taking on another shitty job?”

He’s not sure what to say to that.

“And with the kids-” she continues.

“That’s not fair,” he cuts her off this time. “I’ve been there for them Amy. I’m helping raise Parker I’d do anything for Emma, you know I-”

“I know that. Of course, you would, you don’t even have to say it, I know that. But you've always talked about traveling and seeing the world who knows when you’d get to do that again. If we’d ever get to do that.”

“It’s not like I’m doing that here.” She shakes her head like he’s still not understanding.

“Okay, look. Yeah, maybe I had these dumb ideas about life before. It’s just, I don’t have it figured out right now but that doesn’t mean I won’t manage to do it in California Amy. That’s not what’s important to me right now. Okay, yeah, I don’t know what I’ll do once I get there. But, this,” he gestures between them, “us, with the kids, as long as we’re together. I’ll figure it out. As long as I have you, it’s going to be okay.”

“You think it’s enough for now Jonah, but what about when it doesn’t feel that way anymore. What about when you start to feel stuck because you were the one forced to move there for me and start resenting me for making you feel like that way, I can’t do that to you Jonah. I won’t.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t think you should come to California.”

-

Amy’s had a long day, like a really long day, but everyone stayed after closing and gathered outside to send her off. She makes an effort to smile and thank everyone around her for everything, and she means it.

She doesn’t think she has any tearful goodbyes left in her after finishing her most recent one with Dina. She considers asking her to drive them away for a second. She has no doubt Dina would go through with it, but she knows she can’t really do that.

Jonah is leaning on the hood of a car down the lot and Amy suddenly starts walking towards him. She wants to blame the fact she’s just gotten used to being around him over the years, but it feels more like a gravitational force pushing her to him. She hopes that’s not a bigger sign for something.

She leans on the hood of the same car a few steps away and they just stand there in silence. Neither of them really has the words to fix this, but they’ll take whatever moments they have left of just being around each other.

Their silence is suddenly interrupted by a lone firework let off from somewhere behind the store. After a second a steady stream of them start going off.

“Bo and I had a bunch of fireworks we had gotten for Cheyfest and I wanted you to have them, Amy.”

“Thanks, Chey. They’re beautiful” they give each other one last hug before Cheyenne says something about getting a drink and walks off. Leaving the two of them alone again. They stand there and watch the fireworks, and Amy gives it another minute before saying something to him.

“What if I’m wrong?” she doesn’t turn towards him at first but continues looking up at the fireworks one going off after the other. “What if I get out there and realize that I made a mistake?” She turns to him expectantly then and takes the time to admire the way the light from the fireworks reflect off his face.

He turns to her, “then I’m guessing you’ll know where to find me.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to taylor swift and mariah carey for getting me through this breakup. I really hate you NBC.


End file.
